Haley offers Disney to leave Florida for South Carolina amid DeSantis war

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (FLV) – Republican presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley offered the Walt Disney Company move thousands of jobs to her home state.

The offer came in an appearance on Fox News amid a recently filed lawsuit, the latest development of Disney’s power struggle with the government of Florida and the new Gov. Ron DeSantis-appointed board.

“South Carolina was a very anti-woke state,” she said. “It still is. And if Disney would like to move their hundreds of thousands of jobs to South Carolina and bring the billions of dollars with them, I’ll let them know.”

“I’ll be happy to meet them in South Carolina and introduce them to the governor and the legislature that would welcome it,” Haley said.

Disney employs more than 200,000 workers overall, with around 75,000 of them in the Sunshine State.

Disney’s employees in Florida, however, are working on nearly 25,000 acres of well-established theme park property with a comprehensive road and infrastructure system.

The property is reportedly worth more than $1 billion.

CEO Bob Iger also recently announced a $17 billion investment over 10 years in the Florida theme parks.

Disney alleged in a new lawsuit that the governor-appointed board is engaging in a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” that would threaten “Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”

They described the board’s Wednesday vote to commence nullification of Disney’s last-minute and far-reaching agreements, that occurred before the new board was appointed, as the “last strike.”

DeSantis’ office responded, saying Disney has no “legal right” to “operate its own government or maintain special privileges not held by other businesses in the state.”

“This lawsuit is yet another unfortunate example of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law,” deputy press secretary Jeremy Redfern said.

Haley announced her presidential bid in February.

DeSantis remains out of the race for now, but is set to consider an announcement after the Florida Legislature wraps up its session in May.

Haley previously took a shot at DeSantis in March on foreign policy, saying he is “weak in the knees on Russia.”

DeSantis’ previous description of the Ukraine-Russia conflict as a “territorial dispute” drew ire from members of both parties, including Haley, but the governor said those remarks were “mischaracterized.“

“DeSantis is completely wrong on this,” Haley said. “This is not the time to get weak in the knees on Russia, which is what he’s doing. This is the time to understand that the reason that Russia is trying to get our drones is because we’ve had weakness.”

“The reason is because they hear this conversation. It’s that same mentality that got us into the situation that we’re in with China,” she said.

Some falsely claimed the governor was downplaying the severeness of Putin’s actions.

“Well, I think it’s been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded — that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — That was wrong,” DeSantis said.